Authors: Tim Knight & NORJC

Title: In Perfect Harmony

Copyright: February 2004 Rating: R (for sexual situations and violence)  Spoilers: Buffy: Season 2 until Phases. Specific Episodes: Homecoming. Highlander: Season 5 until Season finale. Richie Ryan lives.  Keywords: Buffy/ Highlander/ X-Files/ Xena: Warrior Princess/ Forgotten Realms. 

Summary: A young woman suffers a terrible ordeal, loses everything that’s dear to her, yet is able to recover with the help of the Slayerettes.

Legalese: All characters except those noted below with their respective rights, properties, and copyrights are the property of the respective creators, authors, owners, producers and agencies. These characters are used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended or meant, and no money will be made from this story. This story may be copied in its entirety, and may be distributed as long as all copyright information remains.  The character of Shaw Hunter is Tim Knight’s.

The characters Steven St. Wolf, as well as numerous other characters and the universe in which this story takes place, are property of Steve Pantovich. Steve can be reached at steve711@concentric.net.

Author's Notes: This is a story taken from a synopsis written by Tim before he passed away.  I hope to keep his spirit alive by finishing some of his stories for you, the readers he so loved.  NorJC a/k/a Jack Caynon.  

Dedications by Tim Knight:

 To Steve, He Who Shall Be Obeyed In The Wandererverse At All Costs, for giving the "do it" command on these ideas.

 To Jack, He Who Shall Correct All Errors and Walking Kama Sutra Of The Wandererverse, for making these stories even better, and offering suggestions that do help you enjoy them even more.

To Mike and Anne, fellow authors whose IM discussions helped me flesh out these ideas, despite the time differentials (Anne being 16 hours ahead of me and Mike, which of course means she gets to celebrate holidays a day before WE do). Couldn’t have done it without you.

To Tenhawk, with whom a talk from months ago turned out to really help with the second fic. Thanks, Oh Grand High Poobah-J. 

Here are the changes from your regular shows, which might play a part in this story:

 Buffy:

1. Buffy is an Immortal in the tradition of the Highlander movies and series, having become Immortal when she was drowned by the Master in Prophecy Girl. She continued Slaying and didn’t know about her Immortality for almost a year before Steve St. Wolf came to town and explained her nature to her.

2. Kendra was summoned by Buffy’s (first) death as in Buffyverse continuity. With the split from Buffyverse continuity in February 1998, Kendra didn’t come to Sunnydale to fight Acathla. Instead, she came to help out against Katherine Plantagenet in Los Angeles in July 1998. She suffered life-threatening injuries fighting a sixth-circle demon and temporarily flat lined on the operating table, but was revived by the surgical team.

3. Faith was summoned a month later in the Wandererverse, and lies spun by the Council ensured that she and her Watcher, Linda Pryce, would not encounter Buffy or her Sunnydale team. Her Watcher lived until January of 1999, when vampires working for Kakistos killed her. Faith was found by Mulder and Scully, who teamed up with the Sunnydale team to vanquish Kakistos.

4. Xander and Cordelia are still together. Xander remembers the things that he got from his tour of duty as Private Harris and uses it to full advantage on patrols. Cordelia accidentally summoned Artemis in late February of 1998 and became an Amazon warrior, allowing her to do something other than be vampire bait. In May of 1999, Cordy’s mother ran off with the money that the IRS should’ve gotten as tax payments, but as a result, Cordelia moved into an apartment with Xander and the two still live together.

5. Willow and Oz are also still together. Willow is still the Super Hacker, but also has her witchcraft. While not as powerful as Season 6 or 7 Buffyverse Willow, the Wandererverse Willow has greater skill and control than the Willow of Season 4. Oz is still a werewolf, but can control his changes at will except during the full moon. He’s still laconic and a Zen musician.

6. Jenny is still alive and engaged or married to Giles. She is the formal teacher to Willow and Amy in their witchcraft, and she is also a High Priestess of Artemis. She still teaches Computer Science at Sunnydale High, where Giles is still Master of the Book Room.

7. Amy joined the team in February of 1998 and started taking lessons from Jenny to hone her powers. She has not become her mother (who in fact, eventually got out of the trophy and redeemed herself), and the two have patched up their relationship. Amy is still blonde and hasn’t had the misfortune of spending three years in a cage. 

Highlander:

1. Richie is still alive. Nuff said.

2. Connor is still alive. He never entered the Sanctuary and has been dragged into a few Boy Scout missions by Duncan and Steve. He is still running his antiques shop in Upper Manhattan.

3. Amanda is still dating Duncan and living with him in Seacouver. Thus, there is no Highlander: The Raven continuity. But she still gets Duncan into trouble and still occasionally "keeps in practice" with her thieving skills.

4. The Watchers pretty much now know that Adam Pierson is really Methos, although he still works for them on that "Methos Project," sifting through his Chronicles and telling them what’s real and what’s not. But he still loves a good beer over taking a head any day.

X-Files:

1. Mulder and Scully are married. They’re Immortal. Skinner’s their Watcher. Nuff said.

 Xena:

1. When Xena and Gabrielle were separated during a battle in 500 BC, Xena couldn’t find Gabby’s body. Ares offered her godhood a few months later and she became a Demigoddess in the Greek Pantheon. She eventually left Earth sometime before 1000 AD and fell in love with Tyr, a God in the Norse Pantheon (the same Tyr from the Forgotten Realms).  She only returned to Earth in February of 1999 when she discovered that Gabby was still alive. 2. Gabrielle is a Highlander-type Immortal. She was found by Red Sonja and became the swordswoman’s student.  Eventually, the two started a relationship. Gabrielle was the Queen who disbanded the last tribe of Amazons, sending some into hiding while 200 older warriors gave their lives to make the Romans think they had been obliterated. In February 1999, Gabrielle was named as the Queen of the reborn Nation by Artemis and has since made strides in repairing her relationship with Artemis.

3. In 504 BC, Xena and Gabrielle trained a Spartan woman named Alika, after she had been invested with power by the Greek Gods to become the first Vampire Slayer in Wanderer mythology.

Bierce Drive Sunnydale, California            

27 July 1999, 2351 P.S.T.

“Blondie, what IS your problem?”

Harmony Kendall glared into her rear view mirror and spied the annoyed look that her friend shot toward the back of her head.  “I’m not the one with the problem, Torch.  I just don’t get why you went out of your way to embarrass Wayne in front of all those losers at the Bronze.”

Lysette Torchio, the eldest ‘princess’ of one of the few affluent Italian American families in Sunnydale, snorted. 

“Oh lighten up, Harm!” she drawled.  “It’s not like I’ll ever see that dweeb again after I start at GWU in August.  And you gotta admit...wasn’t it fun to see him squirm where he could do nothing about it.”

Harmony scowled.  Right, Torchio, if you call unzipping a guy’s fly, dragging out his tool, getting him all hot and bothered, and tipping over the table while shrieking ‘Oh my god, get this perv away from me’ and publically humiliating a decent guy a good time, she thought.  However, she said, “Maybe I wouldn’t have minded so much if you hadn’t dumped my drink on me when you decided to torture him like that.  And...ewww!  I can’t believe you actually touched his ‘thing,’ Lysette!”

She saw Lysette’s reflection roll its eyes in the mirror.  “That’s not saying much coming from you, Harm.  I mean, you’ve never even touched a guy’s cock and you’re starting  college in the fall for God’s sakes!”

Harmony gritted her teeth.  “I’m waiting for the right guy, Torchio.  Nothing wrong with that.”  

Aura then decided to jump into the conversation.  “I’m kinda with Harm on this one, Torch.”

Lysette snorted.  “Geez, you guys, what’s with you?  If Cordy had done something like this before she left us to hang with that loser Summers and her friends, you’d have been fawning all ov–”

“Hey!” Harmony snapped, cutting her off.  “For your information, Cordelia may have been a lot of things but she was a good friend.  She never went out of her way to hurt anybody.  In fact, she saved my life once.  So don’t go there, all right?”

Luckily, Harmony pulled her car over to the curb in front of Lysette’s house at that moment.  She stared at her friend’s narrowed eyes in the rear view mirror for several seconds before the other girl blinked.  “I guess this is my stop,” Lysette murmured.

“Guess so,” Harmony replied.

Aura opened the passenger front door, climbed out, and tilted her seat forward to allow Lysette to exit the vehicle.  As Aura climbed back inside the car, Lysette leaned over and asked, “Harm . . . are we okay?”

Harmony hesitated for a moment before she gave her friend a thin smile.  “Yeah, Torch, we’re great.  Call me tomorrow?”

Lysette grinned.  “You’ve got it, Blondie.  Later!”

As they drove off, Harmony watched Lysette wave to them in her passenger side mirror for a brief moment before she turned her attention to the road ahead of her.

*****

After Harmony’s car’s had made a right turn onto the next  street, Lysette turned toward her front porch.  She strolled past some bushes that rustled from the evening breeze with a frown on her face.  Well, she huffed, that blonde bimbo may have her panties in a bunch over the stunt I pulled, but I thought it was a screa–”

Suddenly, her musings were dashed by a hulking form that sprang at her from behind the bushes.  As she opened her mouth to scream, a hand with a grip of steel clamped over it, while a powerful arm wrapped around her body and dragged her toward the tree-line at the rear of her property.

She struggled in vain as her heels plowed through the undergrowth before she peeked up and discovered hideous, golden eyes staring down at her.  Panicking, she bit into the hand that silenced her, hoping the pain would make her captor release her.  Instead, he laughed and said, “Oh, you’re such a good girl...you saved me the trouble of feeding you myself, my pretty.  I bet you’ll ‘turn’ out to be a fine childe.”  Then she felt his cold breath against the side of her face as she caught a glimpse of sharp fangs in the moonlight.  

Presidio Center Mall

Sunnydale, California

28 July 1999, 1311 P.S.T.

“No fuckin’ way!” Cordelia Chase cried.

The Virtual Amazon Nation’s Warrior Princess stood in front of the display window next to her Amazon sister and best friend, Willow Rosenberg, the Wicca Princess, along with the Immortal Slayer, Buffy Summers, their friend, comrade-in-arms, and leader of the Slayerettes.  Willow’s reflection wore a shit-eating grin on its freckle-speckled, pixie-like  face as the trio stood in front of the Nine West™ shoe store and ignored the pointed stares of the Mall’s patrons in response to Cordy’s outburst.

“Nice goin’ there, Subtle Girl,” Buffy quipped.  “Do you kiss your father with that mouth?”

Cordelia ignored the Slayer and whined at the red head.  “They skipped you ahead into two junior level computer classes and gave you credit for four lower level courses?!?   Netgirl,” Cordelia sighed, trying to regain her composure, “sometimes I really, really hate you!” Cordelia Chase snapped with mock indignation.

Buffy was more subdued in her response.  “Wow, Will . . . way to give us an inferiority complex!”

Willow smiled wickedly at her two friends.  “I know!  It’s so cool, isn’t it?”  Then, her expression became greatly subdued when she apparently noticed the wry look on Buffy’s face and the dangerous look on Cordy’s.  “That is...um...I mean...it isn’t really a big deal...just a computer thing, that’s all...could’ve happened to anyone...and...please don’t hurt me!” she babbled.

Buffy wrapped an arm around the red head’s shoulders as the trio started to stroll toward the Victoria Secret’s outlet.  “We’re just yanking your chain, Will,” she offered as she shot a warning glare at Cordy who was about to disagree with the Slayer but thought better of it as Buffy continued.  “We’re really proud of you.  Your talent is a gift and I’m sure it’ll lead to big things for your future.”

Willow smiled warmly at her blonde friend.  “Thanks, Buffy.  And I’m so happy for you guys, too!  I mean, Cordelia, I was so jealous of you for getting that full scholarship from VAN to study Business Administration.  But after all the crap that happened to you last semester, it was inspiring to see you come out on top like that!”

Cordy grinned.  “Yeah, yay me!  Thanks, Willow.” 

Willow nodded in response, then turned to Buffy.  “And how about you, Buff–a big-time English major.”

“Does that mean she’s going to study all that is Giles,” quipped Cordelia.

Buffy smirked at her.  “Yes...I shall immerse myself in all that is tweed and scon–”

“–ard from Lysette?” Two conversations overlapped and collided in midstream as the Slayerettes bumped into Harmony and her gang. 

Buffy and Cordelia narrowed their eyes as they regarded the four other girls.  “Harmony,” Cordelia said frostily.  Then almost as an afterthought she murmured, “Oh, hello, Francesca, Aura, Lishanne.”

Surprisingly, Harmony smiled brightly at the Warrior Princess for one brief moment.  “Cordelia,” she whispered.  Then, she seemed to catch herself and a haughty expression clouded over her lovely face.  “Oh, hello, Cordelia, Rosenberg...Summers.”

The witch and the Slayer nodded in response.  The two groups regarded each other awkwardly for several moments before Aura broke the silence.  “So...Cordy...are you going to go to Southern Cal with me or to Columbia?”

Cordelia shook her head.  “Actually, Aura, I’m going to UC Sunnydale.  I got a full scholarship there.”

“Wow,” Harmony said breathlessly, “that’s great, Cordy!  I’m glad that thing with your mom didn’t stop you from going to college.”

At first Cordelia thought about going medieval on Harmony until she realized that her words were genuine.  Somewhat taken aback, she said, “Er...thanks, Harm.  How about you?”

Harmony smiled.  “Francesca and I are going to Stanford and Lishanne’s attending Miami.  And you remember Ambrosia and Lysette, right?”

Cordy cocked a wry eyebrow at that.  “How could I forget?”

“Well, Ambrosia’s going to University of Texas and Lysette is heading back east with Lishanne, except she’s going to George Washington University.”

“That’s nice.  How come they’re not hanging with you guys right now?”

“Well, Ambrosia’s off to Toronto with her parents for some conference her Dad is attending but I’m not sure what the deal is with Torch.  She was supposed to call me today but I haven’t heard from her.”

“So, Rosenberg, Summers,” Aura asked, “where are you guys going this fall?”

“Oh, we’re staying here and attending UC Sunnydale with Cordy,” Buffy said.

Aura chuckled.  “Unlike Cordy, I suppose you guys couldn’t get into a “real” college.”

Cordelia’s eyes narrowed at her former friend.  “Actually, Buffy got accepted by Northwestern University.”

With a sly smile, Buffy added, “But that doesn’t even compare to the places Willow could have gone.  Lay it on ‘em, Will.”

The red head smiled cheekily at the popular cliche and said in an excited, husky voice, “I was accepted by MIT, Yale, and Oxford, you know, the place where they make Gileses…”

The Harmonettes regarded the Slayerettes with wide eyes.  Lishanne sputtered, “then why in the Hell would you stay in this godforsaken town?”

“Well,” Buffy explained, “I’d rather have the California sunshine than the Illinois winters.  But what is more important, we’ve got men here in Sunnydale that we wanted to be with.  We did it to be with our friends, girls.  At least we’ll *have* our friends with us.  All of you can’t get away from one another fast enough.”  Then she flashed her patented thousand watt grin at the Harmonettes.  “Now, if you’ll excuse us...” she drawled as she, Willow and Cordelia waded through the other girls.

Just before the Slayerettes parted company with the Harmonettes, Harmony said, “Cordy!”

The Warrior Princess turned and regarded her former friend warily.  “Yeah?”

“I’m happy for you...really.”

Cordelia smiled warmly at the blonde girl.  “Thanks, Harm.  Catch you later,” she said as she and her two friends strolled away. 

For almost a full minute everyone except for the leader of Harmony’s group could do nothing more than glare at the backs of the Slayerettes, while Harmony pensively watched the retreating figure of her beautiful former friend leaving her behind once again.  Then, remembering that she had to leave the past behind, Harmony’s face suddenly brightened.  “Who’s up for a unicorn run to the arts and craft store and then Old Navy?”

*****

Kendall Residence

Sunnydale, California

28 July 1999, 2144 P.S.T.

Her body still tingled from the hot shower as Harmony finished moisturizing her skin.  She reached for her sports bra and panty set and put them on so she could try on some of the outfits she had bought earlier in the day.  Just as she reached for a cute pants suit ensemble she’d purchased at the Limited™, she heard the chimes of her doorbell play the opening bars of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

“Tommy!” she called out to her little brother and then remembered that he was out at a movie with some friends.  “Damn it,” she muttered.  Sighing to herself, Harmony grabbed her terrycloth bathrobe, threw it on, and bounced downstairs to answer the door.  As she approached it, she spied her cat, Buttons, stretched out on the couch.  “You better get off of there before Dad and Mom get home, sweetums,” she cooed as she idly stroked her cat’s chin.  When the doorbell rang again, Harmony left her cat and crossed over to the foyer.  When she peeked through the peephole, the blonde spied Lysette Torchio standing on the other side of the door.

Harmony flung the door wide open and Lysette smiled warmly at her.  “Hey, Blondie.  How’s it hanging?”

“Hey, Torch.  Where the heck were you this afternoon?  You totally missed out on our shopping binge!”

“Oh, I was out late last night,” the other girl answered with a coquettish smile.  “I met this guy who was SO hot!”

Harmony’s eyes brightened.  “Well, don’t just stand there, girlfriend!  Get in here and dish the dirt!”

Lysette’s smile grew even wider as she strode across the threshold of Harmony’s front door.  Then just as the blonde turned to close the door, Lysette wrapped an impossibly strong hand around Harmony’s throat and forced the blonde to face her. 

Harmony didn’t have even enough time to struggle as Lysette lifted her off her feet using only a single hand.  However, when she saw that her friend now possessed a face filled with craggy ridges and sickly golden eyes, Harmony couldn’t even summon the will to resist.  “Oh my God. . . oh my God,” she croaked.

“No use calling for divine intervention, Kendall.  God can’t help you now.”  Then Lysette shifted her around like a rag doll and out of the corner of her eye she saw a group of things with faces just like Lysette’s standing in front of her doorway.  Then the creature that had been her friend licked its lips and purred, “Invite them in.”

Harmony tried to swallow against the viselike grip around her throat.  I’m going to die, she thought.  They’re going to kill me.  Yeah, she was toast but she wasn’t going to make it easy for them.  Gritting her teeth, she narrowed her eyes at Lysette.  “No.  No way!” she wheezed.

With a wicked grin, Lysette reached for Harmony’s wrist and drawled, “I was hopin’ you’d say that!  I guess we’ll just have to do this the hard way, Blondie.”

Even Lysette’s preternaturally strong hand around the blonde’s throat was unable to completely silence Harmony’s screams.

*****

Sandoval Drive

Sunnydale, California

28 July 1999, 2311 P.S.T.

“Walking home was a lovely idea, Zev.  It’s so beautiful with all the stars out tonight.”

The Reudian snorted.  “Compared to you, Joyce, the heavens themselves are vastly overrated.”

Joyce Summers smiled warmly at her companion.  “Why Mr. Mundac, I do declare,” she purred in a passable southern belle’s accent, “you certainly do make a girl’s head swim with such notions!”  Zev chuckled at that and Joyce reached up with her right hand to gently caress his left cheek.  “Thank you for dinner, Zev.  I had a wonderful time.”

“As did I.  Would you like to have dinner again this weekend?”

 “I think I’d like that.”

  “Of course,” Zev Mundac drawled, “whether or not we ever have the opportunity for another date is dependent on several factors beyond our control.”

 Frowning warily, she asked, “Such as?”

 “If,” he said, ticking off his reasons on his fingers, “Buffy hasn't killed me for dating her mother and Faith hasn't driven you insane fishing for juicy details about the two of us.”

 The Slayers’ mother regarded him with a smirk.  “As for Buffy, I can handle her.  She still squirms when she hears my ‘mom’ tone of voice.  As for Faith, well, there haven’t been any ‘juicy’ details to tell her...”  Joyce glanced shyly down at the ground for a moment, then peered up to meet his questioning gaze with a sensuous smile on her face. “Until now,” she whispered as she drew his face down to hers. 

Joyce brushed her lips against the Reudian’s and teased them open with the tip of her tongue.  He responded immediately, meeting hers with his own as they shared a carnal and languid soul kiss.  As Joyce's tongue teased and dueled with Zev's, the alien’s left hand roughly drew the Terran woman against his body.  As they continued their impassioned embrace, Joyce opened her eyes, stared into his, and shivered from the fire that passed between them.  She moaned and pressed herself against him.  She desired him, needed to be as close to him as his own skin–she couldn’t get enough of the man.  As she reveled in his response to her, he dragged his lips away from hers and clamped them onto the pulse point of Joyce’s swanlike neck.  When she groaned in ecstacy from the things he began to do to her, a scream in the distance startled the new lovers from their torrid embrace. 

*****

On the second scream, Zev grabbed Joyce’s hand and charged toward it.  “Come on, Joyce!”  The pair dashed down the sidewalk until they saw a girl that looked around Buffy’s age standing in the doorway of a well-heeled home screaming her head off.  Zev and Joyce raced onto the porch and Zev yelled over the girl’s screaming, “Miss!  Miss!  Are you injured?  Is something wrong?” 

“Ohmigod!  Ohmigod!  They’re dead!  They’re dead!”

“Dead?” he parroted woodenly.  Zev slowly turned to peer inside the doorway.  His jaw muscles became as taut as a bowstring when he spied what appeared to be the bloody remains of a man’s hand and forearm lying on the floor where a sidewall met the foyer hallway.  He looked away from the grisly scene back to the girl who was now shaking her head side to side, apparently trying to deny the horror she’d witnessed. “Girl...girl!” he snapped.  At that, she stared at him with wide, frightened eyes.  “What’s your name?”  When she appeared to be unable to recall that simple fact, he shook her gently and snapped, “Your name!”

“Aura,” she whimpered.

“Aura...do you know the people who live here?”

Aura nodded sullenly.  “The Kendalls.” 

“Aura, you stay with my friend, Joyce, all right.”  Then he turned to the Slayers’ mother and said, “Take care of her.” 

As Joyce hustled Aura out of the Kendall home, Zev entered the house.  He strode toward the appendage on the floor and when he reached the threshold between the foyer and the living room, he was able to see the entire room.  In the middle of the room the torso of the man whose arm he had seen from the doorway lay on its back with the rest of his appendages scattered helter-skelter around the room.  Nearby the body of an attractive middle-aged woman was on the floor.  One of her forearms stood straight up like a frozen stalk of wheat, while blood, purple against the ivory carpet, pooled beneath her corpse.  Although her injuries were severe and her clothing torn away from areas that clearly demonstrated the extent of violation she suffered before dying, the woman’s face was unscathed and angelic as her eyes stared up toward the ceiling.  As he turned away from the dead woman, Zev spied what appeared to be the body of a young boy jack-knifed across the back of the couch.  Blood had poured down the cushions from the apparent wounds on his neck and the claw-marks on his bare buttocks.

The bone-weary alien reached for a dial on his watch and flicked a button.  The device emitted a small ball of energy that hovered in the air, then grew until it rivaled the dimensions of a baseball. The energy ball zipped to and fro for a full minute, taking in every room of the house and all the details of the murder scene before it returned to its master.

The Reudian regarded the scene one last time before he turned to leave.  As he drew his cell phone to call the police, his skin began to redden from the emotions that he struggled to keep in check.

After he had placed a call to both the police and the Wanderer, Zev stepped out onto the front porch.  When he appeared, Joyce flashed a relieved smile at him and reached out with her left hand.  A grateful Zev took it and gently kissed her forehead. 

“Zev...I only caught a glimpse.  Was it...was it really–”

“Joyce...remember how, even after you found out they weren't real, the images of those two children you’d thought had been murdered stayed with you always?”

“Yes.”

“Then you don't want to know what that room looked like.  Not now, not ever.  If you knew, I’m afraid you’d carry that nightmarish image to your grave."

“Oh dear Lord,” she muttered, then wrapped her arms around him, gracing him with her comfort.  “How can you stand it?”

“I've seen worse, on a global scale, twenty times over. But it doesn't make it any easier.”

“Who could do something this horrible, Zev?”

“I'll find out.  And Jurden help them when I do because they’re going to die badly.”

*****

An hour later, Zev had finished going over his story with the police for the third time when he saw two whirlwinds, one blonde, the other brunette, rapidly approaching him from over the detective’s shoulder.  “Excuse me, Detective Winslow,” he murmured as he stepped out to head off the Immortal and Dark Slayers.

“Mundac!” Buffy snapped, “You are SO dead!”

He cocked a wry eyebrow at the little blonde.  “Well, hello, Buffy...Faith.  So nice of you both to join us here this evening.”

“Shut up!” she ordered.  “You’re not sneaking your snooty butt out of this one, Zev.”

“Yeah, Z,” Faith drawled, “what B said.  So why don’t you just take your ass-whupping like a good little E.T., ‘kay?”

Unimpressed, Zev asked, “And why, pray tell, am I scheduled for a dismantling at the hands of a pair of Vampire Slayers?”

“Because you dragged our mother into a potentially dangerous situation where she could have been hurt or killed, you moron!” Buffy said sharply.

At that, the omnipresent smirk on his face skittered away.  Zev blinked a few times and said nothing, trying to absorb the gravity of what she’d just said.  After several moments, the proud alien sighed in defeat.  “Although I loathe admitting this, Summers, you’re absolutely right.  It was unthinkable for me to do so and I hope that both you and she will forgive me.” 

“Wow!” Faith drawled, “this sure is a Kodak™ moment, hearing Space Boy actually own up to screwing the pooch for once.”

“Girls!”  

Buffy and Faith whirled toward their mother’s voice and sprang to engulf her in a loving group hug.  In return, Joyce fiercely held onto both girls.

“Oh, Mom...” Buffy whispered, her voice nearly cracking.

“Hush, babies, hush.  I’m fine.  Zev took good care of me.  See?  Not a scratch!”  

“Then I guess he’s off the hook for the moment, eh, B?”

Buffy pulled back a bit as her face clouded over.  “I’ll get back to you on that.”

By this time, Steven St. Wolf joined the reunited Slayer family and the Reudian.  “Well,” the Wanderer said, “I was able to pull some strings and get Detective Winslow to fill me in,” he indicated a tall, handsome black woman with a nod, “and here’s what she’s pieced together; someone broke in and murdered Mr. and Mrs. Kendall, their fourteen-year-old son, and the family cat.  Aura, who lives a few houses down the block, happened by and noticed the Kendall’s front door was wide open at this time of night.  When she checked it out, she discovered the carnage.  Unfortunately, this thing gets worse.  There was an almost identical multiple murder of the Torchio family earlier this evening not that far from here.”

"You’re saying there was another massacre in Sunnydale?” Joyce screeched.  “And no one thought to inform us about it?"

Steve shrugged.  "The police were trying to keep it quiet for public safety–"

“Oh, yes,” Zev interrupted with a smirk.  “Heaven forfends that the authorities should warn people about mass murderers on the streets.  Ignorance isn't bliss in this Jurden-forsaken place,” he scoffed, “it's suicide!"

“Steve,” Buffy asked, “what about Harmony?  Did they find... her in the house?”

“No,” he replied.  “Detective Winslow believes they found evidence supporting that she had been here but that she was taken unawares before the others came home and spirited away after the rest of the family was murdered.”

“Then she might still be alive?” Joyce asked.

“Maybe.  But these people were killed slowly.  If they kept her alive for a reason...God help her.”  The group grew silent for a moment, then Steve’s eyes narrowed.  “Buffy, call in the team.  Tell ‘em we’re on the clock as of this moment.  Zev, if you don’t mind, we’d appreciate the help–”

The Reudian waved him off.  “Say no more, Steven.  I want to help track down these animals both to help this girl and for ruining my dinner date with Joyce.”

“Thanks,” Steve said.  “Faith, escort Joyce home and meet us back at my house.”

“And Faith,” the Immortal Slayer added, “make sure that Dawn knows she better not set foot outside the house tonight, got it?”

The Dark Slayer nodded as the quintet turned to leave the scene.  “No problemo, Boss Man...Buff.  B‘sides, it’ll give me a chance to grill Den Mom here about that wicked hickey on the side of her neck...”

Buffy stopped short at that.  “What?!” she snapped, then shot a killing look at the alien.  “You gave my moth-er...”she drew the word out dangerously, “a hickey?!?”

While the Reudian cringed under the Immortal Slayer’s glower, Faith wrapped her right arm around Joyce and led the bemused Slayer Mom away from the scene of the Immortal Slayer’s impending thermonuclear explosion with a spring in her step and a Cheshire Cat grin on her face.

“Sometimes,” she purred, “it’s just too easy.”

*****

Darkened Mansion

Pimlico Avenue

Ventura County/Sunnydale City Limits

28 July 1999, 2315 P.S.T.

A scent, both rancid and sickly sweet, assaulted her as the vampires dragged her into the dimly-lit room.  After the horror she’d witnessed in her home and the powerful blows to her head, Harmony was ready to surrender to the hopelessness of her situation and lose consciousness.  In fact, she probably would have collapsed if the vampires hadn’t been there to keep her standing.  With her right hand, she cradled her swollen left wrist along with the left hand and its crooked fingers.  As she winced both from a flare of pain she felt from a bruise on her chin and the throbbing around her left eye, the whimpering girl’s ears perked up when she heard Lysette say, “Master, I have returned with the virgin!”

A gravelly voice from the murky darkness drawled, “Impressive, little demon.  Your performance almost makes me regret destroying your sire for disobeying me and turning you without my permission.”

Harmony could hear the sneer in Lysette’s voice.  “No need for regrets, Master; he was a loser anyway.  Now that I serve you, you don’t need him.  I will never fail you.”  Then the thing that had been Harmony’s friend glanced at the blonde.  “What do you want me to do with her?”

“Place the human in the dungeon and prepare her for the sacrifice.”

At that moment, a wide-eyed Harmony began to scream.  Immediately, Lysette grabbed her by the hair, leaned in close, and displayed the ridged face that would haunt Harmony for the rest of her life.

“Shut up, Kendall!  Or I’ll finish what I started, you stupid cow!”

“Please, Lysette.  No more.  We’re friends–”

Lysette spat, cutting her off.  “Friends?  Who in the Hell would want to be friends with a worthless sheep like you?”

Narrowing her eyes, Harmony growled.  “I am NOT a sheep!”

Lysette regarded Harmony with an evil smile on her face just before she reached down to break another finger on the blonde’s left hand.  Harmony screamed, dropped to her knees, and began to sob as Lysette stood over her, sneering.  “When you’re right, you’re right, Kendall.  Calling you a ‘sheep’ or a ‘cow’ is an insult to livestock everywhere.  You’re more like a worm...a fucking, pathetic worm.”  Then, the female vampire whirled to face her minions and roared, “Get her out of here!”

Immediately, the other vampires dragged the sobbing girl onto her feet and started toward the stairs leading down to the basement.

*****

317 Brant Terrace

Sunnydale, California

28 July 1999, 2331 P.S.T.

“Harris, the level of your torpidity truly astounds me at times,” Zev observed incredulously. “You determined this dastardly deed has to be the work of vampires and demons solely because it happened on the Hellmouth?” 

The alien shook his head as he regarded the Slayerette team comprised of Giles, Jenny, Willow, Oz, Steve, Buffy, Cordelia, Xander, Larry, Shaw, Robin, Liam, Amy, Spike and Drusilla.  “I’ve seen mundane entities do things that put this incident to shame.  For instance, that lovely German political party of yours in the 30’s and 40's readily comes to mind.”

“Whatever, Z-man.  I’m just saying such mindless mayhem is par for the course when you think about whom they snagged here.”

An exasperated Zev sighed.  “As usual, I’m not following you, Harris.”

A puzzled-looking Cordelia asked, “Yeah, I’m kinda lost, too.  What do you mean by that?”

Xander chortled.  “Well, compared to Harmony and her pals,  vampires or demons are the only things that are dim enough to kidnap and attempt to turn her.”

A smirking Willow nodded.  “I mean, can you imagine HARMONY as a vampire?

Buffy snickered.  “No.  She’d die if she had to go through unlife without a reflection.”

The laughs of the three original Scooby Gang members died a quick death at the grim-looking visages they saw on the older people’s faces and the downright hostile look on Cordy’s.

“What the Hell is the matter with you people?” Cordelia snapped.

“Although it pains me to agree with Chase here,” the Reudian began, “sadly I must.  Let us review, shall we?  This poor girl was taken from her home after she probably saw her entire family murdered right before her eyes.  She has been abducted for Jurden knows what purpose and is most certainly in grave danger at this very moment.  Yet the best you can do while this girl is probably suffering unimaginable cruelty and torture is to stand here and insult her intelligence?”  He paused for a moment and regarded the trio with thinly disguised revulsion.  “I see that your race hasn’t come so far from those who helped that German political party sixty years ago.”

While Buffy had the good sense to look ashamed, Willow said in a small voice, “I guess after the way Harmony treated Xander and me and a lot of other kids all those years from elementary school through high school, we couldn’t help but feel like there’s some cosmic justice to this.”

"Rosenberg,” Zev said, “I think you're pushing the limits of good taste, even for you lot."

An angry-looking Giles clucked as he whipped off his glasses and began polishing the lenses furiously.  “I must agree with Zev on this.  While I found both Lysette and Harmony a bit insipid and annoying at times, they are still human beings and do not deserve such a lack of kindness."

“Look,” Xander pleaded, “it's just that after all they've done, for us to just go and help them like they're--"

"What?” Drusilla offered, cutting him off.  “Helpless and in need?"

“I just wish they were more worth it," Xander muttered.

A misty-eyed Cordy regarded her lover with a stunned look.  “A year ago, if something like this had happened to me, would you guys have said the same things?”

At that, Xander regarded his soul mate with a horrified look.  “Honey...how could you say that?  I’d never...I’ve always...” but his voice trailed off as he appeared to finally consider how his earlier words must have sounded to her.

At that moment, Steve said, "Buffy...you yourself have told me how you weren't all that different from Harmony before you were Called."

“Well, yeah, okay, but..."

"Oh, Steven,” Zev drawled, “I’m certain you could do much better than that!  At the very least, endeavor to match Chase’s indication just how low her paramour has sunk.  It’s such a kick seeing you and the Amazon act so...Reudian."

"Zev,” St. Wolf snapped in mock exasperation, “no need to be so insulting."

Then the Dark Gypsy spoke.  "I think you're all forgetting what happened to their families.  Whatever you may think of Harmony and Lysette, their families didn't deserve such ugly deaths."

"Hey,” Amy offered as Faith strolled into the room from the foyer.  “We're sorry too. But we've all seen nasty."

"Really?" Zev asked.

"Really," Amy said.

"We all have, Zev Mundac," Shaw agreed.

The Reudian sighed.  “I wasn't going to do this. But I suppose if it's the only way to get you all to treat this situation with the proper modicum of concern, well...” 

Then, he reached for his watch, pressed the button, and recalled the energy sphere.  At his whispered command of ‘recall,’ the sphere began to pulsate and flashed everyone in the room with all that it had recorded in the Kendall house.  Finally, when it finished pulsating, the sphere reentered the face of his watch and left the room’s occupants to absorb the disturbing images.

"You know...” the laconic Oz whispered, “I kind of wish he'd shown us what Roz did to all of those worlds again rather than...that."

*****

Several seconds after the energy sphere had returned to the Reudian, Cordelia, Spike, and Shaw, all wearing grim faces, immediately started for the front door.  Steve called to them to stop, but they weren’t listening.

Only Jenny, who stood near the door and moved with the speed and grace of the Amazon High Priestess, was able to delay them for a brief moment.  “Wait!  Where are you going?”

“To Willy’s,” Cordelia growled.  “He’s bound to know something.”

“Bitchin’!” Faith drawled.  “I’ll come with.  You know how I just love to beat the info outta him.”

Cordelia glanced at the Dark Slayer and nodded her agreement.  As Faith crossed the room to Cordelia’s side, Xander started forward.  “Xander!” Cordy snapped as she held up her hand to stop him in his tracks like a shot.  “It’s not a good idea for you to be with me right now.  Just stay here, all right?”

As a stunned Xander regarded his lover like a deer caught in the headlights of a rapidly approaching eighteen-wheeler, Steve put up his hands in an attempt to calm everyone down.  “Now, wait just one damn minute!  I don’t think...”

“I don’t give a damn what you think, Wanderer!” Spike snapped.  “The bloody bastard who did this is going down.  Count on it!”

“Spike,” Jenny began, trying to soothe him, “we know it was bad–”

Spike whirled on her, in game face, cutting her off.  “No, ducks!  This wasn’t bad.  What I did to people before I got my soul back was bad.  What Angelus did to your little ancestor was bad.”  As he seemed to calm down a bit, the peroxide blond vampire’s face changed back to its human visage as he continued.  “Jenny, I might have been a sadistic son of a bitch, but I swear to you, to God, Arty, or whatever bloody All Powerful Bloke or Bird you damn well want me to, even MY demon had its bloody limits!  Even the DEMON in me never violated a kid!  I’m going down to Willy’s and I’m going to bloody well beat the shit out of that little weasel until he gives me what I want!”

“And if William does not succeed,” Shaw added as Faith, Spike, and Cordelia strode into the foyer, then her face appeared to shift into a vampire’s game face by the use of her glamour powers, “wait until they get a load of me!”

When Shaw turned to leave with the others, Buffy whispered into Willow’s ear, “I think someone’s watched Batman one too many times.”

*****

Darkened Mansion

Pimlico Avenue

Ventura County/Sunnydale City Limits

28 July 1999, 2335 P.S.T.

“Strip her,” Lysette purred.

Harmony whimpered and struggled against the cold, preternaturally strong hands that held her immobile.  Then Lysette drawled, “Kendall, Kendall, Kendall!” and with mocking gentleness gripped Harmony’s chin.  “Calm down...okay?  Just take a look around.  Does this place look like we mean to hurt you in any way?”

Swallowing her fear, the girl did as Lysette suggested.  The ‘dungeon’ didn’t match the dingy, dank places Harmony had seen in those movies set in the Middle Ages.  No, the well-lit room probably had appeal for those, shall we say, with special tastes.  As the vamps started to rip her robe and nightie, Lysette strutted over to an equipment rack and returned, carrying a long piece of wood shaped like a corkscrew.  “You know, Harm, considering what’s gonna happen to you, I could help you out by making you a woman now.  All I’d have to do is lather this sucker up and do you.”  Then she regarded the terrified girl with a lascivious smile.  “Might even take your mind off of the broken wrist.  So what do you say, baby?” she cooed.  “Want Torch to make it all better?”

A wide-eyed and stunned Harmony actually found Lysette’s attempted seduction even more frightening than the earlier violence.  No, her mind screamed, the only person who’d she’d ever wanted to touch her in that way was now forever lost to her.  In an attempt to escape her current nightmare, in her mind’s eye, Harmony lost herself to the brilliant white teeth, chocolate brown eyes, and dark, silky hair of the beautiful angel who visited her in the blonde’s winsome, midsummer night dreams.  However, when one of the vamps palmed her left breast, it shocked Harmony out of her stupor. 

Launching forward, the blonde kneed the male in its groin, causing him to stagger into Lysette and sending the two to the ground.  Then, as she heard a growl behind her, Harmony whirled to find the only vampire standing in the room stalking her in its game face.  As she crept backward away from the approaching beast, the girl tripped over Lysette’s leg and fell on her butt, hard.  That’s when the thing pounced on her. 

Reacting on instinct, she flailed around for something...anything to use as a weapon to defend herself.  She grabbed the wooden device Lysette had just showed her seconds earlier and held it above her chest in a desperate attempt to keep the vampire from springing on top of her.  A second later, Harmony was astounded when the minion impaled itself on the device and exploded into dust.  After that, she saw her opening, scrambled up from the floor and sprinted toward the door leading to the stairs.  Unfortunately, Lysette’s hand flashed out and snared her ankle, tripping the battered young beauty. 

“Nice try, Harm,” the vampire bitch said with a snarl, “but playtime’s over!”  Harmony barely saw Lysette’s foot flash toward her head.

Then she saw nothing at all.

317 Brant Terrace

Sunnydale, California

28 July 1999, 2340 P.S.T.

"I've got something,” Zev said, “and I guarantee you won't like it."

"Coming from you, that's a given," Xander grumbled.

In response the Reudian rolled his eyes and shot an exasperated look at the tall and lanky teen.  "Oh do shut up, Harris!  Now, I’ve found a record of a credit card purchase made by a Lysette Torchio earlier this evening."

"Smart,” the Wanderer observed.  “They're using her card to cut down on their expenses."

"Steven...it's worse than that.  Ms. Torchio’s card is one of those that have a photograph on it."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, this doesn't make sense,” Amy said.  “What...did the demons just grab her and drag her to this store and make her buy things? I don't get it."

"Sadly, I do.”  Zev sighed.  “She's dead."

"But they never found--"

The Reudian interrupted the little red witch.  “They never found a body, Rosenberg.  That doesn't mean she's alive."

"Oh my god!” Buffy said with a gasp.  “Willow...didn't Harmony say something about Lysette not being around this morning?"

"She was--Oh, Goddess, that means..."

"Now we know how the vamps got in,” St. Wolf said.  “Even Harmony wouldn't be foolish enough to invite a pack of strangers inside her home. So, Lysette came, Harmony invited her inside, then she either tricked Harmony into inviting the others in or..."

"Or snapped bones until she did."

As the rest of the people in the room glared at the alien, Steve drawled, "Tactful as ever, Zev."

Nonplused, the Reudian said, "There's...something more. I accessed the coroner reports on the Torchio family. The daughter...eight years old, had her throat slashed as well as several gouges along her body and in her...private areas...apparently caused by a female hand.  Inside the vaginal area, the coroner found a Lee Press-on nail, pink color."

Willow sputtered, "That...that was Lysette's favorite–omigod!  Oh God, no!"

A somber Xander could barely swallow the lump he now found lodged in his throat as tears poured from Willow’s eyes.  “I’d better call Cordy...she needs to know.”

A visibly shaken Giles fell sullenly onto a nearby couch while Jenny dropped down beside him and hugged him tenderly.  "Dear God...her own sister?"

"Ladies and gentlemen, and with you lot, I use those terms loosely, even for vampires we are dealing with sick minds. So it's time, as you say, to go medieval on someone’s ass!"

Willy’s Alibi Room

Sunnydale, California

28 July 1999, 2338 P.S.T.

As Willy’s head was pressed hard against the surface of his bar, the tavern owner noted wistfully that it really needed a good polishing.

It had all happened so quickly he hadn’t even seen it coming.  One second, he was polishing some glasses and placing them in the rack over his head.  The next, he was kissing wood. “Slayer?” he grunted.  After all, in this burg, it was a safe assumption.

“‘Fraid not,” said a feminine voice, cold and hard.

Willy shuddered and winced as strong hands wrenched his face off the counter and whirled him around, slamming the small of his back against the unyielding edge of his bar top.  Sweat dripped down his forehead when he saw the dark, gorgeous, and lethal eyes that regarded him without a trace of mercy.  Holy shit, his mind screamed.  It’s Chase!  What the fuck does that Hell Bitch want from me?

"Hi ya, Chase!  What’s cooking?” he asked, making sure he did nothing to cause her to think he was being anything but respectful.  Then he saw the brunette Slayer standing alongside the former cheerleader.  “Slayer!” he exclaimed brightly.  “To what do I ow–”

The snitch didn’t even have the opportunity to finish his sentence because his windpipe was throttled by the immensely powerful right hand of the New Amazon’s Warrior Princess.  Then, as she held him suspended off the floor without even so much of a twitch of the muscles of her powerful right arm, Cordelia said in a quiet, deadly voice, “All right, Lame-o...listen carefully because I’ll get really cranky if I have to repeat myself.  The Torchio and Kendall families were butchered earlier this evening.  Some vamps did it.  I want them.” 

A wild-eyed Willy simply nodded.

“I hear they turned my friend, Lysette, and also took my friend, Harmony Kendall.  I want her.  Are you with me so far?”

A wild-eyed Willy slowly nodded.

“Good.  Now I want YOU to spill your guts like never before.  Tell me everything I could possibly want to know about who might have taken her.”

A wild-eyed Willy fervently nodded. 

“Now, if I get everything I want tonight, you just might avoid going through what’s left of your miserable life drinking your dinner through a straw.  Now did you get all of that, or do I have to repeat myself?”

A wild-eyed Willy furiously shook his head. 

“Smart boy!” she cooed.  Then she set him down gently on the floor, released his throat, and regarded him with the smile of a cat toying with a mouse.  “Now...talk to me.”

Minutes later, Cordelia had to bitch-slap him just to make him shut up long enough for her and her companions to begin the hunt for her prey.

*****

In spite of himself, Spike was truly impressed by Cordelia’s skill at scaring the living daylights out of the snitch.  Then, while lighting a cigarette and sauntering behind the three women as they strode away from Willy’s bar, a harsh voice called out to him from the darkness of a nearby alley. 

"Spike, what the Hell is the matter with you?  Why are you hanging with the hunters?"

In response, the platinum blond, souled vampire swung around and strutted toward the voice.  He was able to make out the form of a veteran vampire accompanied by his crew along with a smattering of lesser demons.  In response, William switched on his “bad-ass” persona and said with a sneer, “Well, it’s like this, mate.  This one vamp, newbie, just got made last night and killed her family."

One demon shrugged.  “So?  That's pretty much what you all do, isn’t it?"

"Well...yeah, to feed because when you’re first turned the hunger controls you.  However, we don’t ravage, claw, and damn near rape our own kid sisters just to get off on it. As for what she and her buddies did at the Kendall house, especially to a fourteen-year-old kid------"

"Wait a minute,” the lead vamp said.  “These assholes wasted two kids?"

"Let me clear things up for you, Chuckles.  Wasting would be just biting them or snapping their necks. No, this bitch and her friends cut, slashed, maimed and damn near raped both of these kids. Now, I don't think I have to tell all of you how that reflects on us. People already think we're animals, we don't need them reinforcing it. I don't expect all of you to step forward but I think there's enough of you here to know how much trouble this kind of thing can bring us and will pitch in a bit to get these bastards taken out for the good of us all. Thank you for your time."

"And,” Faith added as she narrowed her eyes at the group of demons, “if that doesn't convince you, let me put it to ya this way.  He's Spike.  William-the-Bloody, himself. I'm the Slayer, the Boogeyman that scares the Hell out of you creeps.”  Nodding to Shaw, she continued, “She's the Hunter.  THE Hunter.  Waiting for us are THE Wanderer and the OTHER Slayer.  Now, think about this very carefully.  William the Bloody, the Slayers, the Hunter, and the Wanderer are teaming UP to waste these sick fucks.  If that doesn't tell you what kind of scum we're dealing with, then think Westley Allan Dodd with fangs."

In response, the group of demons grumbled their understanding, muttering something about seeing what they could dig up as they melted into the night.  When they were gone, Cordelia raised a wry eyebrow at the Slayer.